The Blind Who Will Never See (16:1-4)

And the Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing Him asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. But He answered and said to them, "When it is evening, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.' And in the morning, 'There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.' Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times? An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah." And He left them, and went away. (16:1-4)

Good eyesight is a marvelous blessing, and in order to see better, Americans spend some five billion dollars a year on eye care. About seven percent of the population is considered legally blind. In many parts of the world, of course, the percentage of blind people is much higher.

It is even more significant that, since the fall of Adam, every person on earth has been born spiritually blind. They fall into two categories: those who will never see and know God and those who, by the grace of God and the illumination of the Holy Spirit, are enabled to see and to have intimate fellowship with Him. The deciding factor is how a person is related to Jesus Christ. The person who rejects the Savior remains forever blind; the person who confesses Him as Lord is given spiritual sight as well as spiritual life. Unfortunately, men do not universally have the desire for spiritual sight that they do for physical. The vast majority do not know they are spiritually blind and do not care. Even when offered sight, many refuse it.

Jesus "was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him" (John 1:9-11). Paul declares that, although "since the creation of the world [God's] invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made," rebellious mankind "did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened" (Rom. 1:20-21). Even with evidence of God plainly before them, unregenerate men refuse to see Him. Their eyes reject the evidence because their hearts reject the One who gives it.

"A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God," Paul explains; "for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised" (1 Cor. 2:14). Unredeemed men are "darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart" (Eph. 4:18).

The Old Testament writers also testified to men's natural spiritual blindness. The wicked "do not know nor do they understand," wrote the psalmist; "they walk about in darkness" (Ps. 82:5). The same writer confessed that before he came to know God he "was senseless and ignorant, ... like a beast before Thee" (Ps. 73:22). We learn from Proverbs that "the way of the wicked is like darkness; they do not know over what they stumble" (Prov. 4:19). Because of their sin and rebelliousness, Jeremiah described God's chosen nation of Israel as "foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but see not; who have ears, but hear not" (Jer. 5:21). Micah described Israel's pagan enemies as those who "do not know the thoughts of the Lord, and they do not understand His purpose" (Mic. 4:12).

Three things contribute to man's spiritual blindness. The first is sin. When God's own Son came to earth as the light of the world, "men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil" (John 3:19). The second contributor to spiritual blindness is Satan. As "the god of this world [he] has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God" (2 Cor. 4:4). The third contributor is God's sovereign judgment. When, because of their sin and their allegiance to Satan, men persistently reject God's light, He judicially confirms them in their self-chosen darkness. Of those in Jerusalem who rejected Him, Jesus declared, "If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes" (Luke 19:42).

Through the seven parables of Matthew 13 Jesus describes the characteristics of the age between His rejection and His coming again to establish His millennial kingdom. Those parables present "the mysteries of the kingdom," truths not revealed in the Old Testament but given only to those who during this age trust in Jesus Christ for salvation (13:11). The singular purpose of those particular parables was to teach that the mystery time, which has now lasted some 2,000 years, is a time of both belief and of unbelief, of receiving and of rejecting.

Following the seven parables, Jesus presented eight illustrations (Matt. 13:53—16:12), six of which focus on His rejection and two on His acceptance. History verifies that rejection of Jesus has been vastly greater than reception of Him, just as those parables and illustrations indicate.

The gospel accounts make clear that, beginning with the ministry of John...