The Unfathomable Depth of Spiritual Blindness

by Mike Ratliff

 8 And then that lawless one will be revealed—whom the Lord Jesus WILL SLAY WITH THE BREATH OF HIS MOUTH and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming— 9 whose coming is in accord with the working of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, 10 and with all the deception of unrighteousness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. 11 And for this reason God sends upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, 12 in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in unrighteousness.2 Thessalonians 2:8-12 (LSB)

God’s truth, which is the truth and there is no other, is true regardless of whether people believe it or not. I pray for wisdom and discernment every morning before I go to work. God answers this is surprising ways sometimes. One way He does this is when I receive an email or comment from one who is opposed to what we teach here. As I read what they have to say, I often have to retreat into prayer right then in order to grasp the direction the deception is coming from. Other times I can see it quite readily. In these cases, it is very easy to spot the error because their suppositions or arguments are based on one or more invalid assumptions about God’s truth. Never forget, it is very easy to build a very deep case on an invalid or wrong point. When people do this, then their entire case is nothing but a house of cards ready for the strong wind of truth to come in and blow it away. In the other cases in which I must retreat into prayer in order to ascertain how to respond to the attack, I have found that our enemy or one of his minions has caused this through some level of spiritual protection for those serving him. However, their power is nothing when compared with God’s. We may not, on our own, be able to see through the mist or haze or whatever that protects the lie(s), but when we humbly and boldly take the attack to the throne of grace, God is good and will reveal the truth to us in His timing. Through this, we know how to respond or whether to respond at all.

What is the purpose of these attacks? I am sure those attacking God’s people like this have no idea that they are tools of the enemy. However, we must never forget that God is omniscient and omnipotent. He is sovereign. When we are attacked as we serve Him, it is for two reasons. The first reason is that God has allowed it. The second reason is that our enemy and his minions desire to discourage us and create some sort of leverage in which to thwart us in our ministry. These are the people who, when we share God’s truth with them, they ignore it and like Lot’s sons-in-law, cannot discern that we are giving them the truth. They are spiritually blind and hard of heart. They may be very religious. They may believe they are actually serving God when they persecute those who actually are serving Him. God does give people over to their idols when they love what is not true as if it is the truth, refusing to believe us no matter how often or fervently we share God’s truth with them.

The prophet Jeremiah was given the ministry by God to “speak whatever God commanded” (Jeremiah 1:4-10). However, anyone who has read the book of Jeremiah knows that hardly anyone listened to what he prophesied. All through this book, Jeremiah obediently prophesied evil that was to come upon the Kingdom of Judah because of their idolatry and rebellion against God. In Jeremiah 12, the prophet complains to God about his task.

1 Righteous are You, O Yahweh, when I would plead my case with You;
Indeed I would speak matters of justice with You:
Why has the way of the wicked succeeded?
Why are all those who deal in treachery complacent?
2 You have planted them; they have also taken root;
They grow; they have even produced fruit.
You are near to their lips
But far from their inmost being.
3 But You, O Yahweh, You know me;
You see me;
And You test my heart’s attitude toward You.
Drag them off like sheep for the slaughter
And set them apart for a day of carnage!
4 How long is the land to mourn
And the plants of every field to dry up?
Because of the evil of those who inhabit it,
Animals and birds have been swept away,
Because men have said, “He will not see our latter ending.”Jeremiah 12:1-4 (LSB) 

God replies:

5 “If you have run with footmen and they have tired you out,
Then how can you compete with horses?
If you fall down in a land of peace,
How will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?
6 For even your brothers and the household of your father,
Even they have dealt treacherously with you,
Even they have called aloud after you.
Do not believe them, although they may say nice things to you.”
7 “I have forsaken My house;
I have abandoned My inheritance;
I have given the beloved of My soul
Into the hand of her enemies.
8 My inheritance has become to Me
Like a lion in the forest;
She has given forth its voice against Me;
Therefore I have come to hate her.
9 Is My inheritance like a speckled bird of prey to Me?
Are the birds of prey against her on every side?
Go, gather all the beasts of the field,
Bring them to devour!
10 Many shepherds have ruined My vineyard;
They have trampled down My portion;
They have made My desired portion
A desolate wilderness.
11 It has been made a desolation;
Desolate, it mourns before Me;
The whole land has been made desolate
Because no man sets it upon his heart.
12 On all the bare heights in the wilderness
Destroyers have come,
For a sword of Yahweh is devouring
From one end of the land even to the other;
There is no peace for any flesh.
13 They have sown wheat and have reaped thorns;
They have strained themselves to no profit.
But be ashamed of your produce
Because of the burning anger of Yahweh.”
14 Thus says Yahweh concerning all My evil neighbors who beat at the inheritance with which I have caused My people Israel to inherit, “Behold, I am about to uproot them from their land and will uproot the house of Judah from among them. 15 And it will come about that after I have uprooted them, I will return and have compassion on them; and I will cause them to return, each one to his inheritance and each one to his land. 16 Then if they will really learn the ways of My people, to swear by My name, ‘As Yahweh lives,’ even as they taught My people to swear by Baal, they will be built up in the midst of My people. 17 But if they will not listen, then I will uproot that nation, uproot and make it perish,” declares Yahweh.Jeremiah 12:5-17 (LSB)

Think of the growing apostasy in the Church in our time. Think of those men with their huge following and lucrative book deals from publishers like Zondervan, but these have forsaken the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. They have created another Jesus that is nothing but a man-pleasing idol and have changed the Gospel into something that pleases the masses, but saves no one. Now, do you think that God who spoke vv5-17 above against those idolatrous Jews who had broken covenant with Him will long tolerate what is going on in the Church in our time?

After the destruction of Jerusalem, the Babylonians allowed Jeremiah to go free. However, he was captured by the remnant Jews who wanted to escape the land and go to Egypt in disobedience to what God had commanded. The leaders came to Jeremiah to ask for a word from God about their plans.

1 Then all the commanders of the military forces, Johanan the son of Kareah, Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people both small and great approached 2 and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Please let our supplication come before you, and pray for us to Yahweh your God, that is for all this remnant, because we remain but a few out of many, as your own eyes now see us, 3 that Yahweh your God may tell us the way in which we should walk and the thing that we should do.” 4 Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard you. Behold, I am going to pray to Yahweh your God in accordance with your words; and I will tell you the whole message which Yahweh will answer you. I will not keep back a word from you.” 5 And they said to Jeremiah, “May Yahweh be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with the whole message with which Yahweh your God will send you to us. 6 Whether it is good or bad, we will listen to the voice of Yahweh our God to whom we are sending you, so that good may come to us when we listen to the voice of Yahweh our God.”Jeremiah 42:1-6 (LSB)

Notice that they promised to obey the voice of the Lord even if they did not like what He commanded. Jeremiah faithfully went to the Lord with their petition. In vv5-22 we have the Lord’s answer. He tells them to stay in the land. If they will obey Him then He will protect and build them up, but if they refuse and escape to Egypt, what they believe they are escaping from will surely find them and destroy them. What was the response of those who had promised to obey the voice of the Lord?

1 But it happened that as soon as Jeremiah, whom Yahweh their God had sent, had finished speaking to all the people all the words of Yahweh their God—that is, all these words— 2 Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You are speaking a lie! Yahweh our God has not sent you to say, ‘You are not to enter Egypt to sojourn there’; 3 but Baruch the son of Neriah is inciting you against us to give us over into the hand of the Chaldeans, so they will put us to death or exile us to Babylon.” 4 So Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the military forces and all the people did not listen to the voice of Yahweh to stay in the land of Judah. 5 But Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the military forces took the entire remnant of Judah, who had returned from all the nations to which they had been banished, in order to sojourn in the land of Judah— 6 the men, the women, the little ones, the king’s daughters, and every person that Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan, together with Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch the son of Neriah— 7 and they entered the land of Egypt (for they did not listen to the voice of Yahweh) and went in as far as Tahpanhes.Jeremiah 43:1-7 (LSB) 

This is exactly the reaction we see in these men today with their man-pleasing ministries. They and their apologists respond to God’s truth exactly as these stiff-necked Jews did when Jeremiah spoke it word for word to them. They are going their own way regardless of how many reveal to all who will hear about the unbiblical nature of what they are feeding their “flocks.” Why do they do it? Why do they reject the truth and go their own way? They are in unbelief. They are spiritually blind. They believe they have something better than what their unregenerate hearts see in what we call Orthodoxy. You see, only the regenerate heart can grasp and love God’s truth in obedience and surrender.

In Egypt God spoke more words to Jeremiah, which he shared with the Jews who had forced him to go there with them. It was a word of judgment because of the people’s refusal to repent from their idolatry, such as making offerings to the queen of heaven and other gods. What was their response?

15 Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods, along with all the women who were standing by, as a large assembly, including all the people who were living in Pathros in the land of Egypt, answered to Jeremiah, saying, 16 “As for the message that you have spoken to us in the name of Yahweh, we are not going to listen to you! 17 But rather we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths, by burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, just as we ourselves, our fathers, our kings, and our princes did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of food and were well off and saw no evil. 18 But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have met our end by the sword and by famine.” 19 “And,” said the women, “when we were burning incense to the queen of heaven and were pouring out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands that we made for her sacrificial cakes in her image and poured out drink offerings to her?” Jeremiah 44:15-19 (LSB) 

Those in their apostate ministries in our time say that “God is surely blessing our ministries” since we have moved away from Orthodoxy into this “really cool” “intellectual” “easy-believism” form of Christianity that seeks only peace with everyone. And, hey, those Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists are on just another path to God so we believe in peaceful coexistence with them, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera… You can have your Orthodoxy; it is just another form of our religion anyway…

This is the voice of unbelief and it comes from hearts that have been given over to their idolatry and so are spiritually blind. Unless God opens those hearts, no amount of Godly preaching and teaching will penetrate. We see this very clearly in John 6.

35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will never hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 Now this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”John 6:35-40 (LSB) 

43 Jesus answered and said to them, “Stop grumbling among yourselves. 44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, ‘AND THEY SHALL ALL BE TAUGHT BY GOD.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father. 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.John 6:43-47 (LSB) 

61 But Jesus, knowing in Himself that His disciples were grumbling at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble? 62 What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? 63 The Spirit is the One who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. 65 And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.”John 6:61-65 (LSB) 

Those who are truly in Christ were given to Him by the Father. These come to the Son not by self-will or by any self-power, but they “will come” because of the work of God in the heart. Those who held Jeremiah captive demanded to hear from God and even said they would obey Him, but when they received the truth, they rejected it and moved off into rebellion. This is what the natural man does and, will always do, unless God draws him or her by the washing of regeneration.

In light of these things, we should understand better why so many who oppose our ministries simply will not listen to the truth. They are convinced of their own way because they have been given over to it. They are spiritually blind and unless God breaks through that blindness, they will never believe and repent. Therefore, we must remain faithful and be content where God has us. We minister according to His will and by His power. He is our strength and portion forever.

Soli Deo Gloria!