Born blind?
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"The blind receive their sight." Matthew 11:5
In what state and condition are we by nature? Are we not—blind to our state as sinners before God? blind to the spirituality and condemning power of the law? blind to the majesty, greatness, holiness, and purity of God? blind to the beauty and preciousness of Immanuel? blind to the personality and operations of God the Spirit? And is not this blindness a feature that universally prevails? Are we not, in a spiritual sense, born blind?
Do we not grow up in that blindness? And can any natural power remove it? Can any light in the judgment—can any doctrines received in the mind—can any profession of religion—can anything that nature has done or can do—remove that blindness? It cannot be removed by any power of man in himself.
It is the special work, the grand prerogative of the Son of God, to remove this blindness by communicating spiritual eyesight. And this is done in a moment. There was an instant, though we may not be enabled to recollect it, when divine light was brought into our dark minds—and the blind received sight.
A child of God cannot understand how, or why it is—but he knows that he once was blind—but now he sees! There is in his soul an inward perception—and that this inward perception is attended with certain sensations—to which sensations he was a stranger in times past.
Whenever the blind receive sight, they see the purity and spirituality of God's character. Before the blind receive sight, they think that God is such a one as themselves. They have no idea of—no internal acquaintance with—the infinite purity, holiness, and spirituality of Jehovah.
They therefore never bow down before Him—there is no trembling of heart at His great name—no bringing down of proud imaginations at His footstool—no inward shrinking into self before the loftiness of the Most High—no perception of His glory—no yielding up of the heart in subjection—no adoration nor admiration of His eternal Majesty!
But wherever spiritual eyesight is given, and the purity and holiness of Jehovah are made known to the heart, there will be, as we find all through the Scripture—self-abasement. "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear: but now my eye sees You. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."
The purity, holiness, and spirituality of God's character, produced in the saints of old, this prostration of soul before Him. The Lord God Almighty reveals in the soul His purity, spirituality, and holiness—to bring guilt upon the soul—to drive it out of every lying refuge—and beat out of its grasp every hope, but that which He Himself implants. He beats us out of every false refuge—strips us of every natural hope—and removes every creature prop from under our souls.
He displays His dreadful majesty—sets our secret sins before our eyes—and searches the very bottom of our hearts—to bring us near the Son of His love—to draw us to the bosom of the Lord of life and glory—and make Him dear and precious to our souls!
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