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Join Wayne Burger each week as he explores various topics and scriptures and challenges listeners to meditate on God's Word more deeply.
I am amazed at what some blind people can do.
I had a friend in Denver who was blind. He lived in a house there in Denver, but he worked in Chicago, and every Monday morning he would make his way to the highway, catch a bus, go to the airport, get on an airplane, fly to Chicago. He worked on computers some way.
I don't know just what he did. Work there four days, fly back home, catch a bus, get back down to his house, bed his house all weekend, Monday morning do the same thing. I cannot imagine a blind man doing all of that.
In a sense, that blind man saw a lot of things. In his mind, he could see what he needed to do. He could see where he needed to go for the bus.
He could see getting on the plane. He could see the work that he did. It just amazes me.
Some blind people do a better job at life than some of us who can see. There's a famous account in the Bible of a man who was temporarily blind. You may know who I'm talking about.
Saul was an up-and-coming leading young man in the Jewish religion. I don't think he was on the Sanhedrin court, but he was their right-hand man. He was the man they called upon to go and persecute Christians because they believed that Christians were blasphemy.
They did not believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, and Saul was out there putting them in jail, putting them to death, and doing what he thought was his God-given responsibility as a young, faithful Jew. You may be familiar with the story of his conversion. It's recorded in Acts 9, Acts 22, and Acts 26.
He was on his way from Jerusalem to Damascus to persecute Christians. That's a distance of about 140 miles. He and some men were headed to Damascus to arrest and bring back Christians back to Jerusalem.
On the way, Jesus appeared to him on the road in a bright light, and the men fell down. Quite often we see the picture of him falling off a horse. The text doesn't say anything about a horse.
They fell down on the ground, and Jesus spoke to Saul. He did not speak to the other men. They heard something, but they didn't hear a voice.
They didn't hear the message, and Saul said, who are you? He said, I'm Jesus of Nazareth, and you're persecuting me. He said, what have I got to do? He said, go into the city, and it'll be told you what you must do. And he was blinded.
They had to lead him by the hand into the city of Damascus, and God allowed him to be blind for three days. He spent three days praying and fasting. No doubt this was a major shock to his belief system.
All this time, he had been doing what he thought God wanted him to do, kill those blasphemers. Jesus is not the Messiah, and now then he found that he was, and it is interesting that God waited three days before he sent someone to tell him what he needed to do. It is also interesting that God Christ himself on the road didn't tell him what to do.
Angels, nor Jesus Christ himself, ever told a sinner what they needed to do. God wanted men to teach men, and that's the situation with this man. Jesus Christ did not tell Saul what he needed to do, even though Paul said, what have I got to do? He said, go into the city, and it'll be told you what you want.
And he went in there, and for three days he was praying, he was fasting, he was blind, and he was waiting for somebody to come talk to him about what he did. And of course, we found out the man came over to teach him, and he told Paul what he needed to do, and Paul obeyed. And of course, at this time, Paul is called Saul.
But you notice he spent three days blind. There are some lessons that he learned that we need to think about also. He said, first off, he saw that Jesus Christ was the Messiah.
In a sense, he had to be blinded to see this great truth. Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus had spent three and a half years in ministry in Jerusalem area.
We don't know that Saul ever heard Jesus. He may have, and because Jesus attracted great crowds, and maybe he saw him. But nonetheless, Saul did not believe that he was the Messiah.
But now that he is blind, he sees that Jesus is the Messiah. That word Messiah simply means it's the Hebrew word for anointed. He now understands that Jesus Christ is the anointed prophet of God, that he is the anointed king of God, that he is anointed the priest of God.
But he could not see all of that while he could see. But now that he is blind, he sees something that he had not seen before. The second thing that this blind man saw, he saw that even though he had a good conscience, it was wrong.
Paul said in Acts 23.1 that he had lived in all good conscience. He thought he was doing what God wanted him to do. That's what God had taught him.
The Old Testament was you kill false teachers. He thought Jesus was a false teacher. He thought these Christians who had left the Jewish religion and begun to follow Christ and Christianity were blasphemers.
And so therefore, he felt his responsibility to persecute those people. And so even though he had a good conscience of doing all this, now that he's blind, he realizes that his conscience was wrong. His conscience said it's okay.
His conscience had been taught by the Jewish law that these people are false. You see, a conscience is what God gives us to guide us. But our conscience can be set where we want it to be set.
He set his conscience by what the old law said, and it should have been set by what the new law said. We need to be careful about following our conscience. We need to set our conscience at the right standard.
That standard, of course, is what God tells us to do. Just because our conscience says something's okay, doesn't mean that it's okay. He had to learn that the hard way.
It's unfortunate that so many people today follow their conscience, that they believe something is right when in reality it's wrong. The only way that we know what's right and wrong is by reading and studying the Bible. Now then, Paul, as a blind man, finally saw that great truth.
Paul also saw that his religion and the religion of his parents was now wrong. He was a devout Jew. He was one that said he was a Jew of all Jews.
He was a Hebrew of Hebrews. He was one who kept God's law as faithful as anyone. His parents have been that.
He said he was a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. He was the epitome of what a Jewish man should be. But that religion had been removed when Jesus Christ died on the cross.
And he came to realize that's a blind man. He saw, okay, that religion is no longer in effect. Jesus Christ has changed it, and therefore he needed to change.
And there are lots of people today who need to break with their parents' religion. It is not easy to do that. We want to honor our parents.
We want to do what makes them happy. But you know, if our parents are wrong religiously, we need to break with that just as he broke with them. And we're not told in Scripture what his parents did, if his parents were still living even.
We're not told the reaction. But he broke with his parents and his grandparents and all of his forefathers who had followed that Jewish religion. That Jewish religion had been given by God through Moses on Mount Sinai.
And it had been the law that God wanted them to follow, the religion that he wanted his people to be a part of, and it lasted 1,500 years. But Jesus Christ removed that religion and brought in his religion through his death on the cross. So now that he's blind, he begins to see that the religion he now followed was not the religion that Jesus Christ and God the Father wanted him to follow at this point.
It's difficult for all of us who've had to break with parents. It's not easy. We still love them.
We don't want to be disobedient, but we have to submit to God before parents. And so if you are struggling with breaking with your parents' religion, take courage from what Paul did. It was just as hard for him as it is for you.
But you need to break with that false religion and return to the simple New Testament Christianity that we read about in the New Testament. You know, Paul also saw something else while he was blind. He saw that prayer and fasting did not forgive him of his sins.
He grew up as a Jewish boy. He was taught to pray regularly. They fasted often.
He had done that probably all of his life. And when Jesus appeared to him on the road and they led him into Damascus, he spent three days praying and fasting. But he learned that he now saw that that did no good.
The prayer and the fasting did not forgive him of his sins. There are many people today who believe that their work can save them, that they can earn their salvation, that their devoted life and their commitment to fasting or their commitment to whatever they want to do in a spiritual sense will save them. It's unfortunate, but that's not true.
We have to submit to God's will. Prayer and fasting may be good, but that alone cannot save us. That's what he was finding.
He had spent three days in prayer and fasting as a blind man. But now then he sees that did not save me. We also, he also saw that even though he believed and accepted Jesus as the Savior, he himself was not saved yet.
You know, on the road, he asked, who are you? And Jesus said, I'm Jesus of Nazareth and you're persecuting. Paul became a believer there on the road. But that faith in believing that Jesus is now the Messiah did not save him.
His sins were not forgiven on the road. That experience that he had was not a saving experience. God today does not save anybody by having them have a great experience.
Salvation comes just as it did with Paul. And we'll talk about that in a few moments. But he now sees that his faith in Jesus, even though he now believed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, if that did not save him, Jesus told him on the road, you've got to go into the city and it'll be told you what you need to do.
So faith alone did not forgive him of his sins. He also saw that the life he had been living made him a blasphemer and a murderer. He used that language in 1 Timothy 1 in verse 13.
He thought he was living a righteous life. He thought he was serving God. And now he finds out that all of that was sinful.
People today who are not worshiping correctly, who have not truly been obedient to Jesus Christ, according to the New Testament pattern, if not are not saved. It doesn't matter how he felt. You see, he said his conscience was good and clear.
You may feel good and clear. You may think you're okay in God's sight, but if you have not obeyed what the New Testament says, you're not saved. That faith alone will not do it.
And that in essence, you are a blasphemer and a murderer, as figured he's tense, that you in a sense are not living the right kind of life and you've caused Jesus Christ's death to be in vain. Because you're not submitted. This man also saw that faith alone could not save him.
He had manifested repentance and prayer. That didn't save him. He had faith in Jesus Christ.
He now believed that Jesus was the Son of God. But faith alone did not save that man. That's the reason when the preacher came to him and said, why terraced thou? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins.
That that's when he was forgiven. And so he saw as a blind man that he had to be baptized for the forgiveness of his sins. And that was what he was urged to do.
He had not seen that truth before. He probably knew that Christians were baptizing one another, but he didn't believe that was the way it should be done. But that was now a reality to him in that he saw that as his blind condition and then was instructed by this man that he would now be submissive to God's will.
And as the sitters told, arise and be baptized and wash away your sins. All, as a blind man, learn lots of great truths. Unfortunately, there are lots of blind people today, spiritually speaking, that still have perfect 2020 vision physically, but are blind spiritually.
If you have not submitted to God's will, if you're not obedient to what the gospel that Jesus taught and that death, burial, and resurrection, and you being obedient to that death, burial, and resurrection, then you are spiritually blind and need to be able to see what Saul saw. You see, the Bible warns and says that when Jesus comes back, he's going to take vengeance of those that know not God and that obey not the gospel. 2 Thessalonians 1, 6 through 8. Obey the gospel.
How is that done? Saul obeyed the gospel because the gospel consists of the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Saul obeyed that gospel when he died to sin, buried the old man in the waters of baptism, and rose to walk a new life. Friends, that's what you need to do.
It's sad that so many people today who can see physically cannot see spiritually. Are you spiritually blind? The light of God's word can remove your blindness and give you a clear vision of what you need to do and how you need to live. Thanks for joining us this week and spending time in God's word.
Special thanks to Mac Graham, John Kachelman, and Lightway Media for recording, producing, and making this podcast possible. If you're ever in the Littleton, New Hampshire area, we'd love to have you join us for worship and Bible study on Sunday afternoons at 4 at the Senior Center. You're always welcome.
For more information about this podcast, visit lightwaymedia.com/meditating-on-the-word and find the link there to email me to subscribe to my free weekly newsletter with more information you can use in your personal Bible study. Be sure to like, subscribe, and follow us on your favorite podcast app so that you never miss an episode. And if today's message encouraged you, share it with someone else and consider leaving a review.
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