Spiritual Blindness

This sermon is titled, Spiritual Blindness. You ever had it? Most people are shaking their head for those online. We've got a couple out there saying they're not shaking their head either way, so I don't know whether they don't know or they want to proclaim that they're righteous, more righteous than all of us, which means we've got some spiritual blindness here. Perhaps you have had in your past temporary blindness. No, if you have, I had probably three or four times in my life all of us seem to have different tests and trials and so forth. I thought I was smarter than everyone else in high school. Well, no, I didn't. In my class, I did. Well, I was in a welding class. Any of you ever welded? Arc welding? You've arc welded? Yes, yes. And you have a mask. We had a hood that actually went over and sat on here. I didn't like that. Of course, I was 17 years old and had a lot of longer hair than I do now. I didn't want to mess up my hair since I had to have a class with girls the next block of time. And so I thought I would just hold this helmet like this. I wouldn't put it on, so it wouldn't mess up my long hair. In case you didn't know, I need a haircut now. So they had this helmet, and so I wouldn't put it on. I just would spot weld, and then I would put it right there. And guess what? Next thing I know, I welded for about 30-40 minutes straight. on some steel, and felt good until my next class. And then I started getting red. Then my eyes started swelling, and my welding teacher laughed. He said, I'm not so stupid, am I, Smith? So yes, during the next 48 hours, I had to put cold compresses on my eyes. Couldn't really see really well. Lesson learned.

I remember having some glass blowing my eyes at about 22, and was cleaning something out from a glass bin. And I went out to throw it into the trash. I was supposed to be a foreman at the time, knowing better. Well, guess what? I went out on the dock. Here was a trash can. I had this on a piece of cardboard. And I went to throw it this way, and the wind decided, whoosh, and blew it in my face. All these small little slivers. That hurt, and I couldn't open my eyes. So of course, they had to take me to an eye doctor who then had a little vacuum cleaner. Steady, sucked all these things out. And then he had to go in, and they forced my eyes open, and he took this little machine, and they pulled out all those little glass slivers. And then they gave me this black mask, like the Lone Ranger, except with no cutouts. And I had to wear that for two days. And I knew what it was to have some blindness. And then I had laseic surgery, where I wore contacts at the time. And so I wanted to be like Tiger Woods and Maddox, pitching for the Land of Braves, who all had laseic surgeries. Fairly new, so I said, I want that. So I went in, and they cut a slit in your eye, and then they fold over this little flap. And so they said, you can do one eye or both eyes. If you're scared about it, you may want to do one eye, and then come back. And I said, no, no, no, let's do both of them. And so I had both of them done. Mary picked me up from the doctor, and I had this black thing on, so I couldn't see. But then I had these glasses, rubber glasses, so you had to put it on, so you couldn't touch your eye during your sleep. And that was a miserable time, because you're sitting there thinking, after surgery, what if it didn't work? Because blindness is very serious. Most of us, out of our senses, which one do we least want to give up? I'd say the eyes, the scene. So it all turned out well, but if you've even had a day or two where you couldn't see, you realize just how important seeing is. Everyone in this room has had various types of blindness. You may not remember it. You may not know. When you were born, doctors say, experts say, not Chuck Smith says, experts say that when you're born, you can only, even when your eyes are open, you can only, like this little guy, he can get his eyes open, get a mouth open. So that when you're born, when you get your first eye, you can only see eight to twelve inches in front of you, and that everything else is a blur. I don't remember that far back. I barely remember last year at this time.

But all of us have had darkness in our lives. Most of us, and I say most, I would say most even in the Bible except for a few, and I would say, I dare say everyone in this room, we were born spiritually blind, born spiritually blind. The only problem was we didn't know it. I didn't know it growing up. I didn't know it as I got older. And sometimes I'm sure God once slapped me upside the head and asked me if I went blind spiritually. Paul was a different story, though, wasn't he? Paul, as a Pharisee, when God called him, he considered himself a great Pharisee. As a matter of fact, what did he say? A Pharisee under Gomeliah. And he had 20-20 vision about God. He thought, and many people do. I've talked to many people in my life who said, well, you know, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, even 40 years ago, I thought I knew God. And through the years, they began to have better vision, spiritual vision. See, Paul had to be blinded before he could truly see God. It's scary, isn't it? You know the story. I don't have to go through it in Acts. This is a mature church who reads the Bible, understands how Paul rode to Emmaus as he was doing what he thought God wanted done with these ignorant Christians. Christians, it's going to straighten him out. God struck him blind. Except, unlike me, Paul didn't know when, because the doctor didn't say, you know, in a day or two, you'll be better. Just don't let light come in. Paul could not see he had to be taken somewhere, and for three days, and probably three nights, which, when you're blind, doesn't matter whether it's days or nights. For me, everything just went along. Imagine Paul going through this, because he had chances of our soldiers with him, because he was going to do some work of arresting people and causing problems. I'm sure he had other Pharisees with him, and he could hear a voice, and they couldn't.

Wow! Except, they're looking at this man who was supposed to be a leader. This great Pharisee, and he was blind and, you know, probably crawling around. Like, where am I? What's going on? Spiritual blindness is a severe handicap. It's something that we should be thankful that we are no longer spiritually blind. Do we know everything? Absolutely not. But we're not spiritually blind, and I hope to make that case today in the 35-40 minutes I have left.

Like you go with me at 1 Corinthians 2. This is from Paul. Remember? Former blind man. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 2. I'll read from the New Living Translation. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14. But people who aren't spiritual can't receive these truths from God's Spirit. They're spiritually blind, is what he's saying. It all sounds foolish to them. Who? They're spiritually blind. And they can't understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. There are things of the flesh, and there are things of the Spirit.

You know what we're told? Where are we to set our minds? Things above. A spiritual. A spiritual. Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things. Helps us evaluate Scripture, doesn't it? Helps us evaluate between clean and unclean. Helps us evaluate between good and bad. Helps us to see between the black and the white, and how about this gray area?

I need that, because today there's a lot of gray areas in this world. Every day you listen to radio, you see TV, read the internet. There's a lot of gray that the world's trying to pull us into. They're just all right. They're not saying, oh, you're all wrong. Oh, no. No, no, no. It's okay. We have been given a special gift, but it's nothing special about us.

It's special about what the gift was and who gave it. That's a special. Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others. Hmm. You religious fanatics? You religious freaks? You Bible-thumping, ignorant Christians? I remember he was once governor. He was a Navy SEAL. He became a wrestling person. I say person. And then he became a governor. What was his name? Who? Jesse Ventura.

No. Jesse Ventura. I don't think DeSantis. I haven't seen him in wrestling in any little tights or anything yet. He may, if he runs for president, he may have to get in some tights and wrestle someone down at West Palm. But, um, Jesse Ventura came out because they asked him. He's a governor and he had a TV show and so forth. And so, but his state was very conservative, and there were Bible people who wanted him to rule a certain way. And they asked his opinion on Bible. No, I don't really go. He said, the by, I don't really go by the Bible.

They said, why not? He said, he said, because everyone who has to go to that Bible I have found in my lifetime are weak-minded individuals. Find it. It's on the, you can check it on YouTube, what he said. Weak-minded individuals. Well, that's not what this says. It says, we don't have to worry about being evaluated by Jesse Ventura. And it says, verse 16, for who can know the Lord's thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him? That means we look in there, we get our instruction from there.

I think I'll go with him rather than a wrestling governor. Verse 16. End. But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ. This is why it's so important, as Christi was talking to me earlier about the sermon I gave this morning. This verse puts me there. That's why I felt so passionate about the message this morning, is because I want to have the mind of Christ. And so I have to know how he thought, what he did, how he lived, how he died, and how he interacted with people.

Because unless I adopt that path, I'm not going to make it. Let's go over to 2 Corinthians. Since this once-blinded man knows quite a bit about this, no better source than to go to Paul, the most educated of all the writers, the most prolific writer in the New Testament. So 2 Corinthians 4. Let's go to verse 3 in a new living translation.

If the good news we preach or the gospel, if the gospel we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing. Satan, who is the small g, God of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. Do you believe when you're not blinded? They are unable to see the glorious light of the gospel. They don't understand this message about the glory of Christ who is the exact likeness of God.

I always wondered if Paul and Christ, according to historians, were born about the same time. I always wondered, and I know he's from Tarsus, but Gamaliel was down in Jerusalem, most of his teaching. So I always wondered if Paul never said a word about it, if they ever crossed paths. It would have been at the end. It was interesting because he said that Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. So if we want to act like Christ, it's no big stretch to say that's a godly person.

Have you ever met a person you would say that is godly? Have you ever said, have you? Who was it? Remember? You're what? Your mother-in-law, godly woman. Okay. She acted like Christ as far as you know, mostly, and she approved of him. Just kidding, Dale, you know that.

I need to be more godly. When I measure myself, and I see my faults and problems, I say I need a little bit more godliness in my life. Let's go on down to read verse 6. For God who said, Let there be light in the darkness, blind, who has made this light shine in our hearts so that we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. Paul is saying we've got to have this light in us so that we can even understand, and that spirit brings that godliness to the forefront. Sometimes, as David said, it's not easy looking at yourself and saying, I want to make some changes. I want to go to the next level. I'm sorry. God's way up here. Okay, and Christ is up there too. Sorry, I've got a long lot of levels to go. Okay, now you know what's easiest to do? It's so easy. Don't look that high up. Look around you at people and go, I'm better than they are. Oh, yeah. Right? I mean, that's so easy to do. That's why the Bible says don't compare yourself among yourselves because that's so easy to do because that's what the world does. And God says, okay, this is it. You can get there. It just won't be all at once. I was explaining to somebody a while back about baptism, counseling, and they had this feeling that as soon as they got baptized, man, I just feel like I'll be way up here. No, it's not easy to work that way. Maybe for some people, but it didn't for me and didn't for many people. It's like here, right? Matthew, you don't look over at your parents now and say, look up at me. I'm baptized just a few months and I'm already Christ-like. He hadn't done that yet, has he? Oh, boy, that's a relief. I baptize him. You know, well, he is taller than anyone else. Other than Phil, he's the biggest man in here. So, we really have to want this, don't we? I mean, Paul's telling the church at Corinth, which was the least spiritual of all his churches if you really read the letters to the churches. So he's saying, you can get up here. You can get to these next levels, but you've got to want to be like Christ, and that's not always easy. Let's go to verse 16. Verse 16, that is why we never give up. You can read the verses before that if you want. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. If we just sit around, drink beer, and watch family feud. That's not what I said. See, for them, for us to be renewed, right? Our spirits are being renewed. We have to feed it. And how do you feed the spirit? He said, my words are spirit. And so as Christ is living in us, that spirit, that's how we're renewed. It takes us doing something. Verse 17, for our present troubles are small and won't last long, yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever. Eternal life. This isn't just about here and now. So we don't look at the troubles we can see. Rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. Things seen are proof of things unseen. There's a spirit world out there.

There's two different realms of spirit world. There's a good and a bad, and you can't see them, but they're there. Why do we understand that? Because we walk by faith and not by what?

See, because if we walk by sight, all the time, we'll just say, now I really can't do that. There they go! Oh, yeah.

I saw too many World War II movies. It just makes me want to, okay, where are we going to go to hide here? Can you honestly say you walk by faith and not by sight? I can sometimes, and sometimes I am so visual. I'm like, well, I really can't see doing that. But then, because we can see, we're experiencing spiritual blindness. Honestly, how do you have that? How do you see something and then be blind? You can't. It's the spirit and it's flesh. I look at one man's example, and I didn't understand this. Matter of fact, I had to read it, I don't know how many times, and I've read it probably 20 different times. I'm reading in the book of Hebrews, and I'm reading chapter 11, and I'm looking and saying, what's that guy doing in there? This is a hall of fame of faith, the Hebrews chapter. He should not be in there. Samson. Right? What's he doing in there? Because he lived most of his life, and we know he was at least 50. Because he was a judge. He couldn't be a judge. He was 30, and he was a judge for 20 years. So he was 50, 55 years old, still running around with horns. Harlots, for those more delicate words. What was he doing? He was supposed to be a judge! He had to judge other people and look at his life. You read most of the pages of Judges about him, and it's like, this is a leader. This is a godly man born to be a leader. But you know, the sad part was, Samson had to be blinded physically before he could see the spiritual work that God was doing with him. And can you imagine this? The strongest man on earth. He's been captured, killed a thousand men with a bone at one time. A thousand men one day. And here they captured him. And here they capture him. And at the time they used to do this, they, this shows them like putting something. It's a gruesome picture of his eye. Most of the time, reading historical accounts, they didn't do quite like this. They took a hot poker, and they just burnt your eyeball out. Burn them out. So whether it was this or whatever, this man went through this. And then they tied him up like an animal and made him push a wheel around with some other animals, not being able to see trampsing around in the waste. A far cry from the strongest man on earth. He just forgot where that strength came from too many times. Do we forget sometimes where our great strength comes from? That's usually when we get into trouble, isn't it, brother? And that we have access to that. But whether it was two years or three years, they can't, they, they debate on that. Or whether he's five one, it says even five years, but a few years, he had to do that. No young guy didn't have amazing strength, and he had no eyes.

But God once wanted him in his kingdom. You know, I think he's going to be amazing in the kingdom of God, don't you? A lot of times when you go through such trauma, big issues, and you do it at the end of your life, it really changes you. And obviously from reading in Hebrews, vision, yes. Imagine that he's there. He's going to be in the kingdom of God. Would God cause us to go blind and be under such trauma the last few years of our lives? Yes! If it's going to take that for us to be in the kingdom. Because that's what he wants, and he's going to do everything he can to get us there. Are we going to do our part?

If you could, if you were once blind, but then could finally see, would you be thankful? I've worked with a few blind people. Anybody here work with somebody who was permanently blind? Yes, you have? Yes, yes. Blind from birth? Oh, Mary down. Yes, yes. Yeah. Would you be thankful if you were like that and all of a sudden you were able to have sight? I think so. I would think that probably Mary, if she got her sight back, would make sure she didn't take her sight for granted after that, right? Because I took my sight for granted so many times, but it took one of those things to happen ago. Oh, how precious that is! Yes. In Matthew 20 and verse 29, there's a story. Let's go there. I get time. Matthew.

Matthew 20, verse 29. Now as they departed from Jericho, this Christ, a great multitude followed him, and you know what Jericho was. I think it was way, you've been to Jericho, haven't you? Maybe somebody else, others have. It's the lowest part of the earth, I guess, where people still live. So many, what, 400, 500 feet below sea level. It's just, but he went to this city. And then it tells a story that two men, two blind men were sitting there, and they couldn't see, but they could hear what was going on, and they had heard. And they cried out, have mercy on us, O Lord, son of David. They even recognized him for who he was. They couldn't see the Pharisees. Sadducees could see. Most people could see. These blind men could see who this was, and called him the son of David, the Messiah. That incredible story. And they, they, Lord, help us. He said, what do you need me to do? Heal us. Let us see. And you know what I said? Christ had compassion on them. Christ had compassion on them, and immediately they received their sight. Ha! You know how, you know, when I read that verse, I think about those men, and I kind of go back, and look at that, and I think to myself, God had compassion on me, and he gave me my spiritual sight. And I dare say, most of us in this room could say that. But sometimes we forget it. Sometimes we just take it like, oh yeah, I can, I can see, I can see. And then we're reading some scripture, and I read some scripture that I really didn't understand before, and all of a sudden, my whole mind's opened up, and I understand it as never before. And I can see the spiritual aspect of this, the Word. And you know, like those two men, God had compassion on all of us. I think we should recognize that. Do we know everything? No! Oh, when He opens up those spiritual eyes for us, we only know a fraction of knowledge, and we begin to build upon that knowledge day by day and year by year.

1 Peter 2.9. 1 Peter 2.9. One of my favorites was 9 and 10, about we are a royal priesthood, chosen generation. But I like this because He said He called you out of darkness. So all this other stuff up here, the royal priesthood, what we're going to be is own special people, everything like that. That's all great! But this is what called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. That's why we need to read His Word. John 8 and verse 12 says, Christ proclaims on that incredible day that He is the light of the world. And if we follow Him, we're not going to walk in darkness. What a blessing that is! But you know, sometimes we need to be reminded every week. Probably need to be reminded every day, but at least when we walk in this building, we see people of light. We see people who are not spiritually dark. Have spiritual darkness. They're not spiritually blind. And they remind us we're part of this unique group that Peter talked about, and that we're blessed to have that. Let's turn to another Scripture, Matthew 15. Matthew 15 and verse 14 from the New King James. If you read the rest of the story, because it's very interesting, because it's kind of funny, because let them alone! Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And where are they going to end up? Ditch. Can you imagine somebody being blind? You're blind. You go, follow me. What? You're falling in a ditch? I have, and I had sight. I did something stupid, and I've fallen in a ditch. She has two. I'm not the only one here. I'm not the only one here. I'm falling in a ditch. And there's two. Okay, you know what I think about that is, I got myself out of the ditch, and it wasn't that hard. Imagine if I was blind. You don't know where the ditch begins. You probably don't know where it ends. You can't look and see. But he's saying we have to watch who we follow and discern that, and we can from God's Word by letting the Spirit lead us so that if somebody's leading us to this ditch, we're not going to fall in with them. Your word. Read the word. Blind. Oh, the blind leading the blind. But the spiritually blind cannot lead you if you're not spiritually blind, unless you're just lazy. Right? Because you're not going to get... I'm not going in there. Oops! Oh, I fell into that ditch. Well, you know, the worst thing is it's not falling into the ditch and not getting... and getting out. It's falling into the ditch time and time and time again. And Christ will never lead you into a ditch. So it's important that we get out of the ditch, stay out of the ditch, and follow somebody who won't put you into that ditch, and that's God's Word. You know, one of the first things you see after your spiritual blindness is healed is the importance of the Ten Commandments. It really is. You'll see them. We have one home. I should have brought it this morning. It's up on our wall, but it's the Ten Commandments. And when you're not spiritually blind, you look at those, and they take on a whole new meaning, a spiritually deep meaning to us. And they're just not ten words, as the saying goes. Do you know them? Can you recite them? Can you explain the spirit of the law? See, I understand, and I don't blame anyone for what they believe. I talked to somebody this week that they don't know they're spiritually blind. They're spiritually blind. But it's my job to try to help them, but I'm not there to condemn. But yet, they had issues with what I believe and what I teach. And on the telephone this week, they talked to me. I didn't know them. And they said, I've got a problem with your religion. He said, you're a cult, from what I read.

I said, really? Okay, if you've read all this stuff, why are you calling me? You don't want to be a part of a cult, do you? Well, I'm a James Jones and carry you down to Guyana, right, Vic? Vic knows Guyana. No, but it's interesting because that spiritual darkness, there's things that they can't see, and yet this person had been a religious person for 25 years, he said. And what was a cult? This made us a cult, the Trinity. Okay, these are the things that, according to him, according to books I have and according to the internet, this makes us a cult. All right? Oh, shine some light on it, okay? When I brought out about it, he said, you people don't even believe in the Trinity. I said, well, chances are your church didn't either. What do you mean? We're Trinitarians. We believe in the Trinity. I said, you want to go to YouTube? There's a Yale professor. He's one of the most educated men, and he lectures at all these, and you know what he says, and you can find this in all the books in case you have not read about it. He brings out in this hour lecture at Yale University to the divinity students that we don't really understand the Trinity, and it does no good to try to teach it. Just believe it, because it just requires faith, but it's not really in the Bible. There's just a reference or two to it. You probably run into that, but they admit it. So I said, don't believe me. Go and look at yourself. Why take an hour of my time when you believe I'm a cultist? And then, of course, the Sabbath thing. I remember not long ago, I had a person call me from one of the islands, and they wanted to start a United Church of God in on the island, and they said, we've been, we've got a group, and we're reading everything about you. We have literature. We watch everything, and we believe it all, but we want to have services on Sunday. I said, great, go have them, but I won't be there to preach. And I said, have you not studied the Sabbath doctrine? Have you not studied what we teach, what the Bible teaches, and that Jesus Christ kept the Sabbath and everything else? He goes, yeah, but it's just, it's, it'll be difficult on this island for people who have to work. You can't tell me there's spiritual blindness when they know that it's true, but they can't change? See, these are the four things to shine light on, because to them, this is darkness. To us, this is light. The destiny, our destiny, think about that. Nobody teaches that. Nobody hardly teaches what we teach. Well, then, you're a cult. I had to explain to a young lady this week that, and I think for the first time in over two or three years, she finally came to understand that we're not going to be angels when we die. We don't turn into angels, because that's all she'd ever been taught. And hopefully she realizes her son, who died a few years ago, is not going to come back as an angel, but with greater potential than an angel.

Because we're not going to be angels. We're going to be gods. That's blasphemy, you cult! But that's what the Scriptures say.

And then, of course, get to the last, the Ten Commandments. Oh, well, you know, I believe in all the Ten Commandments. Well, but the Sabbath one is one also. But the others, there's a degree of being able to keep them. Because you can't keep them perfectly, you have to keep none. Now, is that smart?

It's just, see, it's in the dark. How blessed are we? It kind of reminds me of the old, what, Forrest Gump movie? Yeah, you see him as a kid or whatever. He's got these braces on his legs, and he's running. And then all of a sudden, he gets older, and he starts running, and he breaks all these shackles. Brother, that's what it's like for us spiritually to not be spiritually blind anymore. I've known, even since I've become a pastor, I've read stuff and dug into things deeper than I ever did before I became a pastor and go, thank you God! Nobody ever taught me that. I didn't get that, but now I do. Thank you that the veil was off. Remember the guy Jesus healed? And they asked him, who was that guy? What did he do? He said, I don't know. He said, all I know, I was blind, and now I can see. What an incredible statement! I'd love to put, oh, remind you, put that on my tombstone.

I would like that on my tombstone. We don't have it yet, but you know where I want to be buried. So yeah, how powerful of a statement is that?

John tells us, it was one of his last letters, he says, walk as children of light. You know what that means? Not only do we shine, because Christ is in us, but we can see because Christ is in us. And we're not fooled by various things. As I wrote last night in my Sabbath greeting, I was telling Mary that I watched an hour and something apologetics class from a college, this atheist who came in, and it's a very good one. I don't know if you've seen that or not, but it's way worth watching. And it's like no one can fool you if you're led by the light. If you're led by Christ, you're not going to be fooled. They would go, well, I was tricked into this. I can't trick you into anything. Can I, Kathy? I can't trick you. If you know this book, you read this book, you're sincere, you pray to God, you have God's Holy Spirit, I can't fool you. I can deceive you, but it's up to you to say, no, no, that's not right. That's why I tell congregation in Trinidad, St. Lucia, Jamaica, Bahamas, for Lauderdale. It's your job to find if I'm in error. If I say something, it's not a scripture, your job to come and correct me. Well, you're the minister. Now, this is how you help me. This is how you help the body of Christ. If this was done over the years when you had men that came in to separate you from Christ, separate you from the Word of God, we wouldn't have the problems that we have. So tell me, because my job is to teach you the Word. That's my job all week, besides my phone calls and everything else, study God's Word and present it to you as pure as whole.

We should never in this church have spiritual blindness if we all do our jobs and stay strong and read His Word. Are we thankful for our vision? Thankful we're not in darkness? I'll bring this lesson as I close with this because I can't get this guy out of my mind. He wanted me to help him. He had problems. I've been in the church for decades. Then he left for seven, eight, ten years. Then he came back and was there for a year or two. He felt really bad when I gave a sermon. He called me and I went down and talked with him and everything else. He wanted to change. He knew he needed to change. So he said, I'm really going to try. I said, let's study the Word. So I gave him things to read. He wouldn't read. He could read. He didn't want to read. He said, I don't study the Bible. He said, didn't I hear all that?

And I came and said, you need to pray. We would get down at his house and we would pray. I would ask for God to help him because he wanted. He said he wanted to help. You don't do this. God can't do this. And finally, I couldn't help him. I told him he'd have to find another church because he just couldn't get over his prejudice. He didn't like black people. He didn't like anybody, hardly, but especially didn't like black people. He said, I can't. I don't. Well, God's not a racist and I don't want you in my church. I'm sorry if you repent, but I don't know how you're going to do that if you want where he'd have worked. About six months later, he went to another church and he died. And his wife called me. We went to the funeral. And the minister of the other church said, well, I didn't really know him really well. Would you like to say something? No, you got this one. Because what was I going to say?

I'm thankful that we were healed from spiritual blindness. But, brethren, don't just be thankful this week. Walk as children of light. And let's make sure we read this and we will never, ever, ever, for eternity, if we live by these words, we will never, ever again be in spiritual darkness.