The Scales on Our Eyes
“I once was lost, but now I’m just blind.” I heard these lyrics years ago in a Kid Rock song. Kid Rock is not exactly a paragon of virtue, but that doesn’t mean he can’t speak a word to God’s people. As Paul Simon sings, “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls.”
So often, those “on the outside, looking inside” are able to see a clearer picture of reality than the insiders who are “convinced that (they) are a guide to the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor to the foolish.1
I was on the golf course recently with a dear friend who is one of the finest people I know. In our foursome that day was another man who is an honest atheist. He also leans a different way than my friend when it comes to political affiliation. A couple of months ago, I heard him make some politically charged comments. After that, I haven’t heard a word from him regarding candidates or political opinions. He has been nothing but gracious and a great guy who I have enjoyed getting to know.
As we warmed up on the driving range before teeing off, my friend mentioned how he had recently hired our atheist friend to install some cabinets in his home. “I really want to be a good witness to him,” he said. “My heart longs to see him trust Christ as his Savior.”
Almost four hours later, as we teed it up on number seventeen, the other guy in our foursome, who leans the same way politically as my friend, made a negative comment about the “other” party. The two engaged in a diatribe against the “others.” Meanwhile, my atheist friend sat silently in his golf cart. I was silent as well, but I was very aware of what was happening, and it wasn’t good.
We finished our round of golf and went our separate ways. But as I drove home, I thought about the “witness” of my friend that day on the golf course. His Christian faith was so clearly tied to his political affiliation that he was blind to the barrier he placed before a man, of which I have no doubt he longed to see trust Christ.
That’s the problem with culture-bound Christianity. It fails to see the difference between God’s kingdom and ways and the kingdoms and ways of this world. The result is it shuts the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces, and when it does make converts, it turns those converts into twice the sons of hell.2
But most tragic of all, it fails to see just how poisoned and blind it has become.
The threat to Christianity in the United States today does not come from without, it comes from within. And to say the things I say makes me an outsider and a threat. But I don’t say these things because I’m angry - although, at times, I am. I don’t say them because I have an axe to grind - I do not. I say these things because my heart is breaking over what we have become and what we are doing to ourselves. Most of all, I grieve over the cultural-Christian bubble in which so many are choosing to live.
It’s time we heed the words of scripture and “go to him (Jesus) outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.”3
Being an outsider on the inside can be lonely. It can be hard, and it can be heartbreaking. Bible history confirms this reality. Elijah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Hosea, Malachi, and so many of the prophetic heroes in God’s Word suffered for their willingness to take a stand that called into question the thinking and ways of God’s people and their leaders.
From his mountain pulpit, Jesus echoed the words of Moses, who said, “I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets,” when he spoke these words to those with the courage to walk that narrow path and follow him -
“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Italics mine.)4
And to be clear about exactly who it was that persecuted the prophets “who were before you,” here’s what Jesus had to say to those religious leaders on the inside in his day -
“And you say, ‘if we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets.”5
The “testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy,” and that testimony is never tainted by worldly culture, worldly kingdoms, and worldly thinking.6
In Christ,
Dan
Greg Lake’s lyrics in “I Talk to the Wind,” by King Crimson, and the words of Romans 2:19-20.
Matthew 23:13, 15.
Hebrews 13:13-14.
Numbers 11:29 and Matthew 5:11-12.
Matthew 23:30-31.
Revelation 19:10.