Bernie Diaz, August 22, 2017
My family dared to watch yesterday’s solar eclipse of the sun amidst a fairly massive crowd, at a community park relying only on a reflector made of a colander or strainer and a white piece of cardboard. Result? Not much.
We saw only a shadow of the sun through the many holes of that colander. It was a very veiled and unimpressive view of the eclipse because we weren’t prepared with the proper eyewear – glasses or lenses to see it correctly. I tried a few libraries and stores and couldn’t find even one pair of these ‘special’ glasses last week.
Our saving grace for this event, was one person – one middle-aged woman who graciously gave us her lenses, enabling us to actually sit down and look at the eclipse as clearly as could be seen, absent standing in line for more than an hour to get a glimpse through an observatory telescope.
One person, sharing lenses to see something clearly. Isn’t that analogous to the Christian who is mandated to “make disciples,” often beginning with the sharing or communication of a biblical worldview, or lenses in which to see the world through God’s eyes to those that are spiritually blind?
That’s what this blog attempts to do on a weekly basis and what born-again believers need to do on a daily basis: find those biblical lenses, meaning to develop biblical discernment and a worldview and then share it with the lost among us.
We need good biblical eyewear right now- more than ever, as our age may be in a form of eclipse, where the light of truth becomes harder to see everyday, as the darkness of sin continues to block or obscure that light.
Somewhere, somehow we will find something to put over our eyes, or a method in which to see what it is in front of us. As someone, perhaps a Puritan of old once illustrated temptation, when you are being tempted, the devil sets on your nose a pair of false or ‘rose-colored’ glasses. These glasses make sin look small enough to make our falling in it seem trivial.
How does Satan fool us with lies so that we believe that committing sin will be so inconsequential? Here are four of the common ways the enemy of our souls eclipses, or distorts our spiritual vision with his lies during temptation.
The Devil focuses our attention on the immediate pleasure rather than the pain of sin.
As someone said, a juicy worm floating in the water looks tasty to a fish, but when it bites and the hook is set the pain makes it thrash. In the same way, the lure of instant gratification of fleshly desires, found in things like; fornication (sexual sin), greed and power, or the pleasure of popularity or prestige (how many likes did I get this week on my social media posts?) may numb my attention just before I feel the ‘pain’ of what may follow.
The Devil makes us nearsighted when it comes to sin.
A key to the enemy’s success with sin in our morally relative society, has been to reduce much of what is referred to as ‘sin’, as merely being a personal and private preference. Satan’s sunglasses make many a person think that viewing pornography, indulging in same-sex and premarital sexual relationships, household idolatry, grudges, gossiping, masturbating, or wasting time are merely personal matters and do not carry public consequences.
What biblical lenses teach us is that each of these sins and others like them are not only seen by God, offending him, breaking his just and good laws for his people, but also result in the harm of others. As Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of England was reported to have said, “Private choices have public consequences.”
Just ask the now divorced guy who neglected intimacy with his wife and lost his family due to an addiction to watching porn (an illicit industry that enslaves and degrades women); the grudge-keeper who becomes a hater and the time-waster who could have been serving and loving others in need. Some sins may begin in private but its impact spreads in public. Didn’t King David’s lust for Bathsheba start just privately?
The Devil causes us to view sin as distant or non-existent.
When tempting Eve, Satan responded to her reminder of God’s warning about eating from the tree with the contradiction, “You surely shall not die!” Like looking through the wrong end of a telescope, or unsafe glasses, as many did during the eclipse, the evil one makes you believe that sin and its consequences are far away and will not hurt you.
Yet, even if delayed for a time, consequences will come. People who stared at the sun during the eclipse- total or partial for too long a period of time yesterday, risked serious injury to their eyesight. Similarly, people who mock the sure reality of condemnation and Judgment Day, will realize they are were being foolish in ignoring the gospel call or biblical wisdom by choosing to remain in unrepentant sin for too long. Sin always leads to death one way or another (Ro. 6:16).
The Devil shrinks the majesty and holiness of God.
Satan loves to eclipse or obscure the infinite, eternal, and holy God from being seen in our hearts and minds, by preventing us from “seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4).
When God is small in our thinking, it makes sin small in our sights as well. If someone were to ‘put lipstick on a pig’ we would know something was wrong. Or, if someone were to sneak in and put a mustache on the Mona Lisa in the Louvre in Paris, the whole world would cry out in disgust. Why?
The greatness of the artist and the sacredness of his painting bring glory to him that demands respect and honor. Satan deceives most people into thinking you can put lipstick on a pig and make it look better or by ignoring a mustache on the Mona Lisa.
Our glorious God, who I prayerfully praised for his glory and handiwork in the heavens during the solar eclipse (Psa. 19:1) yesterday, is dishonored when his own artwork – image bearers like you and me (Eph. 2:10), disobey him and do not even recognize and acknowledge sin for what it really is. Spiritual blindness will come at a greater cost than can be imagined to those that fail to look at this world, and the glory of God in Christ.
May God’s people, do kingdom life and business God’s way and offer the Light of the world to those that cannot see.
My Captive Thought 